Ashamed
by pygmypuff8
Summary: Charlie wasn't ashamed of Draco, he was ashamed of himself.


**AN: For the Hunger Games Competition, using the prompts Charlie/Draco, petrichor, "I... can't", fury and flying class. This is unbetaed, because I finished it too late for any of my wonderful betas to have the time to beta it, so please excuse. Without further ado, enjoy and please review.**

**Disclaimer: Characters don't belong to me.**

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><p>Charlie had always accepted that he would never find that special someone that he could share his life with. Most witches he knew didn't want a boyfriend or a husband that worked with dangerous creatures day in and day out. Of course, it didn't help that he didn't exactly fancy witches.<p>

He had known that he liked blokes ever since he was fourteen years old when he had been an accidental witness of a clandestine meeting between a seventh-year Gryffindor and a fifth-year Slytherin, both boys. Instead of being disgusted by it, as every boy he had heard talking about boys kissing before; he felt a strange tightening in his chest, like excitement and arousal all wrapped up in one.

Of course, once he worked through his emotions regarding the scene and realized that he liked boys, he had been terrified out of his mind that someone would find out. While he knew that the Wizard society was a bit more lenient toward same-sex relationships than Muggle's were, the majority of the Magical Wizarding Community still regarded it as dirty and weird.

His mother was one of those people.

So, he kept quiet, dating girls, and keeping up the pretext that he liked them. When he finally finished school, he was so relieved that he didn't have to work so hard to hide it from the rest of the student body anymore, that he completely forgot about his mother's viewpoint on being gay.

With her pushing him to find a nice girl, and his brothers looking at him strangely when he turned down girl after girl his mother set him up with (some of whom were really nice and whom he would've loved to be friends with), he was feeling hunted.

Although the Burrow had always been home to him, he began to feel like a stranger there. The ramshackle old house, which he had always adored, as it had lots of nooks and crannies to hide in, had turned into a house full of traps. His mother somehow manoeuvred girls into all sorts of places in the house, inviting them to tea and then asking them to fetch something for her, which inevitably led to her getting lost. Then, his mother sent him out after them and once, he even had to persuade a very stubborn girl out of his room.

His old home, the Burrow, began to feel like a prison.

As soon as he saw an opportunity to move out of the house, he took the job in Romania to tame dragons. When his mother complained about him moving so far away, he just said that nowhere else would take such a young dragon tamer.

After the war had ended and Voldemort was dead, he had gone back to Romania, thankful for the return to normality and an escape from his mother's incessant questions about his love life. Here it was accepted that most people didn't have any sort of romantic relationship to speak of, as they all lived a dangerous lifestyle, and it was hard for any of them to find a boyfriend or girlfriend that will accept that part of them.

Also, dragon tamers as a rule didn't date each other, as there was fierce competition between who could tame which dragon, sometimes even resulting in duels, which was very detrimental to a romantic entanglement.

(Charlie never did like following rules, though).

Charlie had resigned himself to not having that special someone in his life. He had his friends, a few whom even knew the truth of his sexual orientation, and his dragons. What more could a guy want? He had met Draco at a get-to-know-your-fellow-trainees-and-instructors party, and had immediately hit it off. Things….. took off from there.

**O.o.O.o.O.o.O**

Draco looked up startled at the overcast sky as a he felt drops of rain beginning to fall with increasing frequency. He looked around at the other trainees around him, all of whom where muttering about the rain, which was falling with increasing heaviness.

The smell of petrichor, dusty and refreshing at the same time, was wafting up from the bone-dry ground, which hadn't received any rain in about two months.

The raining was actually beginning to be a kind of bother to him. Draco looked at their instructor to see if they were going to be let out of training for the day. However, their trainer, a certain Charlie Weasley, his boyfriend for about three months, seemed oblivious. He was still gesturing wildly as he explained the correct way to handle a Chinese Fireball just learning how to fly and how to help it.

The rain now really beginning to pound down on them, Draco looked beseechingly at their instructor. Seeing that Charlie was still not taking the hint of his students, who were all beginning to look disgruntled, some even waving their arms around trying to gain his attention, Draco shook his head fondly.

Knowing that his lover would stand there preaching about dragons until they all caught a cold, Draco swiped his white-blonde hair out of his eyes, and called out above the increasing loudness of the rain. "Professor, please, it's raining buckets, we're all going to be sick!"

Looking quite startled, Charlie looked up at the sky, but quickly averted his eyes after receiving a bucketful of water in his face. Looking at the faces of his disgruntled students, Charlie nodded reluctantly and dismissed the class.

Draco waited until all the other trainees had hurried off to the changing rooms, before jogging to catch up to where Charlie was trudging over to his cabin, linking their arms together.

Although dating the instructors weren't technically allowed, they had allowed it for Charlie and Draco. They knew that Charlie was too dedicated to excellent dragon taming to be lenient to any of his students.

Pushing open the door to Charlie's cabin, Draco immediately fell into the discussion they had been having before class.

"So, when are you going to tell your parents about us?"

Charlie's back tensed, and without turning around he said, "Draco, I…can't."

"Why not? Your siblings know and they don't have a problem with it. My mother knows, and she is even more old-fashioned than yours and she doesn't care."

Ridding himself of his soaked shirt, Charlie pulled on a dry one before turning to face Draco, a tortured expression on his face.

"You don't understand, my parents, actually my mother really wants grandkids. From all of us. And, well, if I tell her I'm gay, she will never forgive me for depriving her of grandkids," grinning depreciatingly, Charlie said jokingly, "I don't have your gifted silver tongue that will talk me out of anything."

While Draco knew that rationally, Charlie had never implied anything of the sort, he felt a sudden flash of fury, and clenching his teeth, said, "You know, that excuse is getting pretty fucking old. If you're ashamed of me, an ex-Death Eater, say it, don't make up piss poor excuses."

So saying, Draco stomped out of the room, leaving a shell-shocked Charlie behind him, staring after him, his head shaking, whispering, a catch in his voice, "I'm not ashamed of _you_, you great big dolt…"


End file.
